Cover not available
Article published In:
English World-Wide
Vol. 35:1 (2014) ► pp.68–93

‘Don’t even [θ/f/h]ink aboot it’

An ethnographic investigation of social meaning, social identity and (θ) variation in Glasgow

| Birmingham City University

As a relatively new phenomenon in the phonology of Scottish English, TH-fronting has surprised sociolinguists by its rapid spread in the urban heartlands of Scotland. While attempts have been made to understand and model the influence of lexical effects, media effects and frequency effects, far less understood is the role of social identity. Using data collected as part of an ethnographic study of a high school in the south side of Glasgow, Scotland, this article addresses this gap in the literature by considering how TH-fronting is patterned across three all-male, working-class, adolescent Communities of Practice, and how this innovative variant is integrated within a system of the more established variants [θ] and [h]. Drawing on recent work on linguistic variation and social meaning, the article also explores some of the social meanings of (θ), particularly those variants which previous research has reported as being associated with ‘toughness’, and suggests how these meanings are utilised in speakers’ construction of social identity.

Keywords: Glaswegian, adolescent male language use, (th), sociophonetics, Community of Practice, linguistic variation, ethnography
Published online: 21 February 2014
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/eww.35.1.05law
References
Anderson, Elijah
1997 “Violence and the inner-city street code”. In Joan McCord, ed. Violence and Childhood in the Inner-City. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1–30. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Braber, Natalie and Zoe Butterfint
2008 “Local identity and sound change in Glasgow: a pilot study”. Leeds Working Articles in Linguistics 131: 22–43.Google Scholar
Brato, Thorsten
2012 “A sociophonetic study of Aberdeen English: innovation and conservatism”. Ph.D. thesis, University of Gießen.Google Scholar
Bucholtz, Mary and Kira Hall
2005 “Identity and interaction: a sociocultural linguistic approach”. Discourse Studies 71: 585–614. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
California Style Collective
1993 “Variation and personal / group style”. Paper presented at New Ways of Analyzing Variation 22, Ottawa.
Clark, Lynn
2009 “Variation, change and the usage-based approach”. Unpublished Ph.D. thesis, University of Edinburgh.Google Scholar
Clark, Lynn and Graham Trousdale
2009 “Exploring the role of token frequency in phonological change: evidence from th-Fronting in east-central Scotland”. English Language and Linguistics 131: 33–55. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Davies, Andrew
2007 “Glasgow’s ‘Reign of Terror’: street gangs, racketeering and intimidation in the 1920s and 1930s”. Contemporary British History 211: 405–27. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Drummond, Rob
2011 “Glottal variation in /t/ in non-native English speech: patterns of acquisition”. English World-Wide 321: 280–308. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Eckert, Penelope
2000 Linguistic Variation as Social Practice: The Linguistic Construction of Identity in Belten High. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
. 2002 “Constructing meaning in sociolinguistic variation”. Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Anthropological Association, New Orleans, Louisiana.
. 2005 “Variation, convention, and social meaning”. Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the Linguistic Society of America, Oakland, California.
. 2008 “Variation and the indexical field”. Journal of Sociolinguistics 121: 453–76. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Eckert, Penelope and Sally McConnell-Ginet.
1992 “Think practically and look locally: language and gender as community-based practice”. Annual Review of Anthropology 211: 461–90. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Eckert, Penelope and Sally McConnell-Ginet
1999 “New generalizations and explanations in language and gender research”. Language in Society 281:185–201. . DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Foulkes, Paul and Gerry Docherty
1999 “Urban voices: an overview”. In Foulkes and Docherty, eds. Urban Voices: Accent Studies in the British Isles. London: Hodder Arnold, 1–24.Google Scholar
Hebdige, Dick
1979 Subcultures. London: Methuen. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Johnson, Daniel Ezra
2009 “Getting off the GoldVarb standard: introducing Rbrul for mixed-effects variable rule analysis”. Language and Linguistics Compass 31: 359–83. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Johnson, Ronnie and Arthur McIvor
2004 “Oral history subjectivity and environmental reality: occupational health histories in twentieth-century Scotland”. Osiris 191: 234–49. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 2007 “Narratives from the urban workplace: oral testomonies and the reconstruction of men’s work in the heavy industries in Glasgow”. In Richard Rodger and Joanna Herbert, eds. Testimonies of the City: Identity, Community and Change in a Contemporary Urban World. Aldershot: Ashgate, 23–44.Google Scholar
Kerswill, Paul
2003 “Dialect levelling and geographical diffusion in British English”. In David Britain and Jenny Cheshire, eds. Social Dialectology: In Honour of Peter Trudgill. Amsterdam, Philadelphia: Benjamins, 223–43.. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kiesling, Scott
1998 “Men’s identities and sociolinguistic variation: the case of fraternity men”. Journal of Sociolinguistics 21: 69–100. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Labov, William
1972 Sociolinguistic Patterns. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.Google Scholar
Lawson, Robert
2009 “Constructions of social identity among adolescent males in Glasgow.” Unpublished Ph.D. thesis, University of Glasgow.Google Scholar
. 2011 “Patterns of linguistic variation among Glaswegian adolescent males”. Journal of Sociolinguistics 151: 226–55. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 2013 “The construction of ‘tough’ masculinity: negotiation, alignment and rejection.” Gender and Language 71: 369–395.. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Levon, Erez
2010 Language and the Politics of Sexuality: Lesbians and Gays in Israel. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Macafee, Caroline
1983 Glasgow. Amsterdam, Philadelphia: Benjamins.. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Macaulay, Ronald
1977 Language, Social Class, and Education: A Glasgow Study. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Google Scholar
Mendoza-Denton, Norma
2008 Homegirls: Language and Cultural Practices among Latina Youth Gangs. London: Wiley-Blackwell.. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Milroy, Lesley
1987 Language and Social Networks. 2nd ed. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Moore, Emma
2003 “Learning style and identity: a sociolinguistic analysis of a Bolton high school”. Unpublished Ph.D. thesis, University of Manchester.Google Scholar
Parker, Howard
1992 A View from the Boys: A Sociology of Down-Town Adolescents. Aldershot: Gregg Revivals.Google Scholar
Robinson, Christine
2005 “Changes in the dialect of Livingston”. Language and Literature 141: 181–93. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Schleef, Erik and Michael Ramsammy
2013 “Labio-dental fronting of /θ/ in London and Edinburgh: a cross-dialectal study”. English Language and Linguistics 171: 25–54. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Stuart-Smith, Jane and Claire Timmins
2006 “‘Tell her to shut her moof’: the role of the lexicon in th-fronting in Glaswegian”. In Christian Kay, Graham Caie, Carole Hough and Irene Wotherspoon, eds. The Power of Words: Essays in Lexicography, Lexicology and Semantics. Amsterdam: Rodopi, 171–183.Google Scholar
. 2010 “The role of the individual in language variation and change”. In Carmen Llamas and Dominic Watt, eds. Language and Identities. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 39–54.Google Scholar
Stuart-Smith, Jane, Claire Timmins and Fiona Tweedie
2007 “Talkin’ Jockney? Variation and change in Glaswegian accent”. Journal of Sociolinguistics 111: 221–60. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Trudgill, Peter
1972 “Sex, covert prestige and linguistic change in the urban British English of Norwich”. Language and Society 11: 179–95. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 2001 “On the irrelevance of prestige, stigma and identity in the development of New Zealand English”. New Zealand English Journal 151: 42–6.Google Scholar
. 2008 “Colonial dialect contact in the history of European languages: on the irrelevance of identity to new-dialect formation”. Language in Society 371: 241–54.. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Wells, John
1982 Accents of English 1: An Introduction. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Cited by

Cited by 6 other publications

Dzokoto, Vivian, Nicole Senft, Lily Kpobi & Princess-Melissa Washington-Nortey
2016. Their Hands Have Lost Their Bones: Exploring Cultural Scripts in Two West African Affect Lexica. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research 45:6 ► pp. 1473 ff. DOI logo
ILBURY, CHRISTIAN
2021. ‘Ey, wait, wait, gully!’ Style, stance and the social meaning of attention signals in East London adolescent speech. English Language and Linguistics 25:3 ► pp. 621 ff. DOI logo
Kendall, Tyler, Nicolai Pharao, Jane Stuart-Smith & Charlotte Vaughn
2023. Advancements of phonetics in the 21st century: Theoretical issues in sociophonetics. Journal of Phonetics 98 ► pp. 101226 ff. DOI logo
Lawson, Robert
2014. What Can Ethnography Tell us about Sociolinguistic Variation over Time? Some Insights from Glasgow. In Sociolinguistics in Scotland, ► pp. 197 ff. DOI logo
Moody, Andrew
2019. World Englishes in the Media. In The Cambridge Handbook of World Englishes, ► pp. 652 ff. DOI logo
[no author supplied]
2023. The Sociophonetics of Dublin English [Studies in Language Variation, 30], DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 29 march 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.